


On Faded Wings

by revoltrad



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragons and magic, Eichi-kun's flavor of moral ambiguity, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:01:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25002061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revoltrad/pseuds/revoltrad
Summary: Tsumugi Aoba has lost everything and everyone. Dying on the side of the High Road, he has an encounter that will change his life forever. And if he's lucky - really, truly lucky - he might just fall in love.===Fantasy AU inspired by the Dragon Natsumugi cards : )
Relationships: Aoba Tsumugi/Sakasaki Natsume
Comments: 5
Kudos: 32





	1. First Encounter

Aoba Tsumugi lays on his side, wheezing weakly in the ditch of the High Road. Desperation has driven him this far from the capital, but circumstances have not been kind to him. 

_“You’ve outlived your usefulness, Tsumugi.”_

A wet cough wracks his weak frame, driving pain into his chest as the movement aggravates the wound there. He should have known the blade would be poisoned. 

He should have known many things.

Word must have spread this far outwards in the kingdom; Tsumugi’s certain it won’t be long now before the price on his head is common knowledge. 

Eichi-kun never does things halfway, after all.

That’s when the rain starts. Quietly at first, pitter patters here and there, the barest hint of wetness on his cheek. But all too soon, it’s a downpour that soaks Tsumugi to the bone.

He licks at chilled lips, thinking it was not wise of him to stumble and fall into a ditch during the rainy season. He’ll likely drown, if he doesn’t die of hypothermia first. At least he has no reason to fear dehydration.

His mind wanders, split between the icy cold of the rain and the fever that takes hold of him once again. Whatever poison Eichi chose to use, it was not a kind one. It is one that has wrecks him with fevers, nightmares, and full-body weakness. He’s certain that his body’s natural regenerative abilities have been robbed of him as well. It’s not a poison he knows from his studies, but it’s an effective one nonetheless. Perhaps, he thinks dimly, it was one of Ritsu’s…

Soon, his mind is just as waterlogged as his body. 

Everything hurts.

And then: the sound of hooves plodding through the mud. Tsumugi whimpers. If it’s between being killed for a bounty and drowning in the ditch, he’d rather the ditch. His mind wanders to the thought of moving, of getting up, of getting out of here, but his cold limbs won’t respond. Pathetic. 

The animal comes to a halt, and a splashing noise indicates the rider has dismounted. Tsumugi shakes now with fear, not with cold.

What’s going to happen to him?

_“Please, Eichi-kun. I can still… I can still be helpful, I can---”_

_“What could you ever do, Tsumugi?”_

He closes his eyes. He does not want to see the end coming. 

“What do we have heRE,” says a smooth voice with an accent that Tsumugi places with the northern reaches of the kingdom, not a common one around even these parts. “HelLO? Are you even alive down theRE?”

Tsumugi feels warm hands touch his face, and tries to blink his eyes open. His vision is too blurred for him to make much out, but he sees eyes the color of fire, and a halo of red hair. His fever-addled mind shows him a face he’d seen many years before, a woman who had visited the castle and who had been gentle with him, motherly in a way he had never known before.

“Sa…” Tsumugi tries to say, but he coughs once again, and whimpers at the pain the movement brings him. 

“SleEP,” says the pretty stranger with their oddly lilting words, and soft fingertips encourage him to shut his eyes. He must imagine the orange glow that follows, and then he does as he is told, and knows no more.

  
  
  



	2. Waking

The first thought Tsumugi has upon waking is that he is dead. Certainly he could not have survived the poisoning, nor the blood loss. But there’s confusion, too, because in no way was he prepared to enter an afterlife as comforting and warm as this one seems to be.

Tsumugi’s fingers touch fur lined pelts, piled on top of him generously, and his head rests on a pillow soft as down. He can’t see more than a foot in front of his face without his glasses, so his surroundings dull to these points of contact. He blinks, and then tenses as he sees movement from the corner of his vision.

“I see your fever finally brOKE,” says a soft, masculine voice, and Tsumugi can vaguely make out the shape of a thin, average-height man. Red hair, dark clothing, moving closer until a cool hand rests atop his forehead. Tsumugi hardly dares to breathe. “It seems Mikejima was correct about the antidoTE, and lucky that he wAS. Your heart stopped beating twICE.”

“Oh,” Tsumugi says, unintelligently, earning him a soft snort of annoyance from his… savior? captor? He’s not sure yet. 

“Of courSE, one would normally thank the person who saved their liFE.”

Tsumugi flushes.

“S-sorry, I--- I’m just surprised that you _did_ , I suppose,” he says, voice scratchy with disuse.

“And why wouldn’t I have doNE?” asks the red-haired man.

Tsumugi’s eyes close as the memories resurface. A pleasant smile, pale hair, and the slip of a knife between ribs. He shudders. What is the point to being alive, anymore, he wonders?

“I don’t know why you’d save someone who wants to die so badly.”

A huff, this time, and Tsumugi finds himself glad that his captor - for that’s what he must be, right? - is this expressive when Tsumugi still can’t make out his face.

“Oh, so you _wanted_ to dIE. I sEE. ThEN, did you stab yourself with a poisoned blaDE, and flee the capitol because you wanted _deATH_?”

Tsumugi is silent. His hand moves to his side, where he was stabbed, feeling for bandages that are wound around his torso.

“I wondER, is death what you were running towaRDS?” says the man, placing a hand on Tsumugi’s chin and tilting his face to the left, “...or was it what you were running fROM?”

Tsumugi doesn’t answer. The man doesn’t seem to mind, though, and lets go of his face, choosing instead to sit on the bed beside him.

“Your actions may yet prove you wroNG, Aoba TsumuGI.”

The blurred outline of the man moves again, and then leans closer, until---

“Ah,” Tsumugi remarks as his glasses are slid onto his face. Now, at last, he can make out the finer features of his company, and for a moment he does just that. The man’s red hair is cut asymmetrically, streaked through with white, and his eyes are catlike and molten gold. He’s frowning, a look that seems completely at odds with a memory of a smiling woman that struggles to break through the vague haze that still muddies Tsumugi’s thoughts. “What is your name?” he asks, brow furrowing with the effort of clinging to the image in his mind.

“....” The man does not answer at first, frowning at Tsumugi. Then, he sighs. “Sakasaki NatsuME,” he says, at long last.

Sakasaki Natsume. The given name is unfamiliar, but the surname is not. Tsumugi had met a Sakasaki, once, when he was very young. She’d had the Northern accent, too, voice smooth as silk. Natsume’s voice is smooth, too, but much more like that of the edge of a heated blade.

“Any relation to-” Tsumugi tries to ask, but finds himself cut off.

“It is none of your busineSS,” Natsume snaps, glaring at Tsumugi. Tsumugi’s face colors again, and he bites the inside of his cheek. It’s clear that Natsume doesn’t want to talk about it, but the aversion from the topic at hand is answer enough, for now. Tsumugi won’t press it.

There is silence for awhile, and Natsume turns away to glare at something else in the room. It gives Tsumugi time and space to think, which is almost never a good thing.

“Sakasaki-kun---” he tries, but finds himself cut off once more.

“You will refer to me as Natsume. My surname is not one that should be spoken heedlesSLY." Tsumugi just nods, showing that he’s understood, and tries again.

“Natsume-kun, then?” When he isn’t interrupted this time, he continues. “What do you plan to do with me?”

Natsume’s eyes cut sideways to regard him.

“What do you meAN, plan to do with yoU.”

Oh, it’s hard to say, but Tsumugi desperately needs to know.

“Am I… Are you planning to… turn me in?” he asks, voice small. There is silence in response to this question, almost unbearable in its duration. Tsumugi fidgets with the edge of his bandages.

“Stop messing with thOSE,” Natsume snaps, cowing Tsumugi. “They were hard enough to put on in the first plACE, and I won’t thank you for having to redress your wouND.”

“S-sorry,” Tsumugi stammers. They sit in silence once more, until finally Natsume breaks it.

“I have no plans to turn you iN,” says Natsume, looking away. “And yeT, I get the feeling that if I leave you to your own devicES, you will waste the efforts I made to save you in the first pLACE.” 

Tsumugi does not know what to say to that; Natsume is not incorrect in his assumptions. Tsumugi has nowhere to go, nowhere to run to, and everything to run from. He’s a wanted man, and the pain that haunts him, the hurt that blurs the corners of his mind into darkness, it calls to him. 

_“You’ve outlived your usefulness, Tsumugi.”_

“Then… what _will_ you do with me?” he asks, banishing the voice.

There is another long bout of silence.

And then Natsume turns, and leans over Tsumugi, eyes searching, an arm braced beside Tsumugi’s head. Whatever he finds in Tsumugi’s gaze, he does not seem to like.

“It seEMS,” he says, eyes narrowing, “that you are now _my_ problEM.”

Tsumugi sputters.

“You will not be returning to the capitAL, that much I can assure yOU. TomorrOW, we will see what you are made oF. For noW, thouGH…”

His eyes glow gold, and Tsumugi smells the sweet tang of magic on his breath with his next word.

“SleEP.”

And, without even a moment to prepare himself for it, Tsumugi falls back into the darkness of slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading home slice


	3. Love or Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **suicide attempt cw!**
> 
> ALSO i am in need of a beta so shoot me a comment if you're interested~

When Tsumugi wakes again, the room is empty. At least, it is as far as he can tell. His glasses no longer rest upon the bridge of his nose, though a quick turn of the head reveals them to be sitting on a table quite close to the bed. Almost as if someone had made sure to put them within viewing range of him. 

How curious.

He slides his glasses into place, and the room comes into proper view. Before, he’d been distracted by his company, but now, he has the time to take everything else in. 

The room is simplistic in its contents, the walls a cream plaster aside from the wooden beams. To the left of the bed is a wooden doorway, which Tsumugi assumes leads to the rest of the… is this a house? There is a window catty-corner from the door, and Tsumugi can see thatched rooftops and a clouded sky that looks heavy with the promise of rain; from this he assumes he’s on the second floor of whatever this building may be. The room’s contents are relatively sparse, save for a table and chair, and a wooden dresser of sorts with a dusty mirror. 

Tsumugi’s eyes finally land on a loaf of bread with a knife on a small wooden cutting board, and tries to sit upright. His side aches with the pain of the action, but it’s a dulled feeling compared to the sharpness of before, and he manages. He swings his legs out of bed and takes a shaky breath.

Hands on the bed for support, Tsumugi pushes himself to his feet, and is pleased to find that his legs bear him properly. He hopes that means he hasn’t been bedridden for too long. 

Tsumugi makes it to the chair without falling, and sinks into it with a relieved sigh.

What would Eichi-kun think, if he were to see him now?

The thought makes him wince. For a second, for only a second, he’d managed to forget.

But his memories do not lie.

It’s Eichi-kun’s fault he’s here. Eichi-kun, who’d grown up beside Tsumugi, who’d trusted him above all others, who’d given him such purpose.

He can’t compromise the two conflicting ideas. The Eichi-kun who’d sunk a knife into his flesh with a smile, versus the Eichi-kun who’d...

_ Tsumugi, don’t you think the flowers look lovely today? _

_ Tsumugi, this tea blend is wonderful. Your research was useful after all. _

_ Tsumugi, I only need to rest my eyes for a moment… Just a moment… _

The knife is in Tsumugi’s hand before he has time to realize it.

And then, Tsumugi does something stupid.

===

Natsume sweeps the last of the spilled pixie dust into a pile, then carefully sweeps it into a dustpan. Normally, he hates doing manual labor when he can just magic the chores to do themselves, but pixie dust is volatile enough without allowing it to interact with magic like that, so he’s stuck managing it the old-fashioned way.

Once the dust is back in a new, unbroken jar, he sets it aside and looks at the table, the source of the startle that had caused him to knock over the dust in the first place. He’d been asking the peculiar deck of cards a series of questions, unsure about what to do with his guest. 

The deck had unkindly suggested that Natsume’s options were Love or Death. 

Stupid cards.

He sweeps them back into a pile and shuffles them roughly, as if to communicate to the cards that he is displeased with their guidance, and that they’d better shape up if they don’t want the treatment to continue.

With a new question in mind, he is about to lay out two new cards, until he hears a loud  _ thump  _ from the ceiling above him. 

Natsume sighs, setting the deck back down gently. He supposes that was Tsumugi, likely falling out of bed. 

He’d hoped Tsumugi would wake fully soon (as annoying as that was likely to be), but he knows that the spells he’d used to preserve Tsumugi’s stable state could have nasty side effects, including low blood pressure. Perhaps Tsumugi’d stood up too fast and fallen, Natsume thinks. It wouldn’t be out of character for the man, who, from what he can gather, wasn’t exactly  _ lucky _ .

It wouldn’t do to leave the shop unattended while he goes to check on his guest, so Natsume flicks his wrist to swing the wooden door shut from afar with a simple push spell. He similarly locks it, then heads upstairs to the guest room.

The door opens easily, but the sight that Natsume beholds is far from the scene he had expected.

Natsume dras in a sharp breath at the smell of iron in the air.

Tsumugi lays on his side in a puddle of blood, which pools outwards from where he cradles his wrist. Natsume rushes to crouch by his side, wondering who had attacked Tsumugi, but a bright gleam out of the corner of his eye answers the question for him. 

The bread knife lays on the table, its surface covered with blood.

Natsume swallows as he realizes. There is no outside threat.

Tsumugi did this to himself.

“ _ TsumuGI, _ ” he finds himself saying urgently, kneeling down beside his guest. His hands move without thought, finding a weak pulse. He has to act fast. 

Natsume begins chanting, layering spells together and weaving them into something he hopes will save Tsumugi’s life. He’s lost too much blood - Natsume knows he cannot save him by simply staunching the flow. Instead, he acts without thought, dips two fingers in the blood and begins to draw spiraling glyphs and sigils that wind their way up Tsumugi’s arm. 

Tsumugi’s breath comes in shallow pants, eyes unfocused just as they were when Natsume first came upon him. The magic has stalled things, just slightly, but he knows it’s not enough. Faster. Natsume has to act faster, or he’s going to lose him.

_ Love or Death. _

Grabbing the knife, Natsume draws it along his open palm, hissing at the pain of the wound. With precision, he draws his own blood into patterns along his wrist and forearm, mirroring the markings he’s made on Tsumugi’s.

When Natsume speaks again, his voice holds an ancient power, invoking the magic that flows in his own veins. 

_ “You, who tried to take your own life against the will of the Witch, this shall be your Atonement. For all the sins you have Committed, you shall live on, Bound to me by living Blood. The Blood that flows through your veins is Indebted to me _ .” 

Natsume exhales slowly.

Then he presses his cut against the much deeper one at Tsumugi’s wrist, and everything begins to glow. The air around them is full of symbols wrought by Natsume’s skilled hands. 

_ It’s working, _ he thinks, and knows what he must do next.

Though he does not have a lot of experience drawing magic out of other people, Natsume closes his eyes and focuses. He senses with the part of himself that is perfectly tuned to the magic that curls around his soul, and uses his own magic to seek out Tsumugi’s. 

It’s blue and icy cool when his own fiery red magic twines itself together with Tsumugi’s. At first, his own magic recoils, but Tsumugi’s seems to draw it back, beckoning, singing for another’s warmth. The cold soothes his own magic, and as they connect, Natsume feels the raw power that comes with it.

It is tremendous and terrible, overwhelming and utterly titanic.

It shakes Natsume to his core.

Drawing from both of their powers, Natsume begins his final incantation, weaving words in the air with his free hand. The words ignite, burning away into nothingness and leaving behind a thick blue fog that floats to the ceiling of the room.

Then the room is quiet, and still.

Tsumugi lets out a shuddering exhale, and does not move again.

Natsume blinks. Once. Twice. 

_ Please.  _

_ Love or Death. _

_ Please… _

And then, at long last, Tsumugi gasps, eyes flying open. To Natsume’s surprise, the blood on the floor rushes back into the open wound like liquid being sucked up through a straw.

  
It wasn’t a part of Natsume’s spell.

_ How stranGE. _

Tsumugi lays, panting for a moment, and then he pushes himself upright, eyes full of questioning wonder.

“What have you done?” he asks Natsume in the tiniest sort of voice, and Natsume huffs, waving away a wisp of fog.

“I just saved your liFE,” Natsume says, petulant, but his body sags under the weight of expended magic. He’s used up the majority of his Mana for the purpose of saving Tsumugi, and now he must face the consequences.

And oh, there are consequences.

“Natsume-kun…” Tsumugi says with concern, but Natsume brushes him off.

“LatER,” he says, sagging further. His eyes are so heavy. “LatER, after I’vE… aftER…”

A hand cradles his head as it falls towards the floor.

This time, it is Natsume’s turn to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> will i ever end a chapter with a character doing something other than passing the fuck out? yes. but this is Not that chapter


	4. Bonds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> throws this chapter down and runs for it

When Natsume comes to, he’s disoriented at first. He can’t tell where he is, and it’s dark, and his head pounds with the usual headache that comes with depleted mana. He sits upright and snaps his fingers, summoning a faerie light both to crowd out the darkness, as well as to gain a better sense of where his Mana was at after resting. Not bad--- he’d need to drink a replenishing potion to help ease the discomfort, but he'd restored an adequate amount to know he'd at least slept well.

Natsume turns, intending to get out of the bed he’s been laying in, but the light reflects off of something in the waning darkness and Natsume nearly leaps out of his own skin as Tsumugi comes into view. (He’d forgotten he doesn’t live alone, anymore.) Tsumugi is seated at the table, snoozing with his head on the wood and body turned towards the bed, as if he fell asleep watching Natsume rest. 

All of it irritates Natsume, whose face feels unpleasantly warm. With another snap, Natsume lights the wicks of the candles set about the room. The extra light reveals a pile of dirty rags next to a dark stain on the floor. 

_ Had he…? _

Natsume’s irritation rises to the tipping point. And then, taking careful aim, he sends a push spell Tsumugi-ward.

There’s the sound of a yelp, followed by a great crashing as Tsumugi tips, overbalances, and tumbles to the floor. That’s twice he’s landed on it today.

Truly annoyed now, Natsume stands, stalks over, and regards Tsumugi where he’s sprawled on the floor, glaring down at him.

“N-Natsume-kun?” Tsumugi stutters, pushing his glasses up on his nose and cringing at the look he finds on Natsume’s face.

“Good morniNG,” Natsume snaps, remembering Tsumugi’s stupidly rash choices from earlier and getting angry all over again. “I suppose I should be grateful that I awoke to find a living person instead of a coRPSE, shouldn’t I?”

Tsumugi has the sense to look guilty, which does little to ease Natsume’s irritation.

“I…”

“By the goDS, I know you said you wanted to dIE, but to do thAT, after I worked so hard to save yOU...” Natsume sighs, and crosses the room to sit back down on the bed. He pinches his nose between two fingers to try and alleviate the throb that’s building behind his eyes. He knows he shouldn’t be taking it out on Tsumugi like this, but  _ someone _ has to value his life, and it clearly isn’t going to be the man himself.

“I… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. It was impulsive and…” Tsumugi looks down at his lap, biting his lip. Natsume watches him in silence, sure that that’s not all there is to be said. “But, I was thinking about Eichi-kun, and I just---”

Natsume quirks his head at the name.

“Eichi-kun? As in, the anti-Mage-posturing royal, Tenshouin Eichi?” It’s the only  _ Eichi _ he knows of, and coincidentally the only one with the authority to post such a well-rewarded wanted poster campaign for his houseguest. Natsume’s anger flares up again, and then recedes like a wave upon the shore. 

Silence stretches between them once more.

“Yes. I was… acquainted with him, during my time at the castle.” Tsumugi won’t make eye contact, and Natsume… Natsume wonders.

Just what had Tsumugi  _ been _ to the king? What memories ghosted through his soul and caused him to do something so violent, so rash, so self-destructive? What actions had led him to being a wanted fugitive of the crown?

Natsume had never met Tenshouin, and if he had his way, he never would. His personal grudges against the man were already outstanding before Tsumugi came into the picture. 

But the look on Tsumugi’s face just now… As if he’d lost everything dear to him in the world...

“Put it out of your miND. He has no power in these lanDS.” Of this, Natsume is certain. This far in the North, the reach of the ruling class is distant and fragile. Easy to topple. And topple it had, some years ago, when the town of Thiefshold was founded. 

  
(He was sure whatever reputation his current home held, it wasn’t good.)

“What did you do to me, Natsume-kun?” Tsumugi interrupts Natsume’s thoughts, wringing his own hands. “When you… with my blood. What did you do?”

“Since  _ someone _ attempted to bleed out on the guest bedroom floOR, I had very few optiONS,” he said pointedly, glaring Tsumugi’s way. “It is an ancieNT, forgotten rituAL. And hopefully one that will allow you to survive any further attemPTS.”

There’s more to it than that. But Natsume does not say that it was a ritual that was used in wedding ceremonies between Mages, one which allowed the pair to access each other’s magic and Mana and tied their lives together, nor that the practice had been outlawed by the King. His cheeks warm, but Natsume doesn’t break eye contact. He reaches out with his own magic, causing Tsumugi to flinch at what Natsume assumes is an odd and new sensation.

“I bound our magic togethER. Your blood is miNE, and mine is yoURS. That is all you need to knOW.”

“You needn’t have done that,” Tsumugi says softly, apologetically.

“Needn’t I? Was I supposed to let you dIE, after all of my effoRT?” It irks Natsume that Tsumugi treats himself like he is disposable. It’s insulting, considering the raw potential that Tsumugi’s magic holds. Natsume is not jealous. 

He’s  _ not _ .

“I… I wouldn’t have died. Not from that.”

Tsumugi refuses to meet Natsume’s eyes, now, instead staring down into his lap.    
  
“That remains to be seEN.” But then, there  _ was _ the curious nature of Tsumugi’s blood, how it had receded back into his body unbidden by any force Natsume had used. “Why do you sound so certaIN?”

“I don’t think it,” says Tsumugi, still looking down. “I know it. I… I was cursed, as a child.”

_ Ah _ . 

Natsume had dressed his wounds, hadn’t he? He’d seen, there on Tsumugi’s bare chest (though he’d tried not to look too hard, privacy was something Natsume attempted to respect whenever possible): a curious glyph too complex to read at a glance. Then, Natsume had assumed it was simply none of his business.

But...

_ “Oyaaa? How curiooous!” Mikejima had said, swirling a sample of Tsumugi’s blood around in a glass phial. It sparked every few turns. “This poison’s got magic woven into iiit? It seems like it’s preventing the blood from clotting… I wonder why~” _

_ He’d given Natsume an annoying, calculating glance, the kind of look that anyone was likely to receive if they presented Mikejima with a puzzle that wasn’t easy to solve. _

Natsume brushed the memory aside, his usual response to anything to do with the roguish protector in charge of the town. 

“CursED.”

Tsumugi nods, but doesn’t elaborate. And Natsume, sensing that now is not the time to press for more information, doesn’t make him. However, there is still something Natsume considers important to address.

“Even assuming this curse prevents you from dying naturaLLY,” he says, twirling his hair in a hand, “I would appreciate if you discontinued your attempTS.”   
  
He trusts that he doesn’t need to explain exactly why, and is satisfied with the nod Tsumugi offers.

“NoW, I’m certain the spells suspending your body in its metabolic state have more than worn off by nOW. Are you hungRY?”

Tsumugi nods.

“GoOD. Follow mE, thEN.”

And Natsume leads the way to the door while Tsumugi scrambles to his feet.

  
  



End file.
